_THE SECOND CHAPTER_
ANIMAL LANGUAGE
IT happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talkingwith the Cat’s-meat-Man who had come to see him with a stomach-ache.
“Why don’t you give up being a people’s doctor, and be ananimal-doctor?” asked the Cat’s-meat-Man.
The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at therain and singing a sailor-song to herself. She stopped singing andstarted to listen.
“You see, Doctor,” the Cat’s-meat-Man went on, “you know all aboutanimals—much more than what these here vets do. That book youwrote—about cats, why, it’s wonderful! I can’t read or write myself—ormaybe _I’d_ write some books. But my wife, Theodosia, she’s a scholar,she is. And she read your book to me. Well, it’s wonderful—that’s allcan be said—wonderful. You might have been a cat yourself. You knowthe way they think. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoringanimals. Do you know that? You see, I’d send all the old women who hadsick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, Icould put something in the meat I sell ’em to make ’em sick, see?”
“Oh, no,” said the Doctor quickly. “You mustn’t do that. That wouldn’tbe right.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,” answered the Cat’s-meat-Man. “Just alittle something to make them droopy-like was what I had reference to.But as you say, maybe it ain’t quite fair on the animals. But they’llget sick anyway, because the old women always give ’em too much to eat.And look, all the farmers round about who had lame horses and weaklambs—they’d come. Be an animal-doctor.”
When the Cat’s-meat-Man had gone the parrot flew off the window on tothe Doctor’s table and said,
“That man’s got sense. That’s what you ought to do. Be ananimal-doctor. Give the silly people up—if they haven’t brains enoughto see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animalsinstead—_they_’ll soon find it out. Be an animal-doctor.”
“Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors,” said John Dolittle, puttingthe flower-pots outside on the window-sill to get the rain.
“Yes, there _are_ plenty,” said Polynesia. “But none of them are anygood at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did youknow that animals can talk?”
“I knew that parrots can talk,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, we parrots can talk in two languages—people’s language andbird-language,” said Polynesia proudly. “If I say, ‘Polly wants acracker,’ you understand me. But hear this: _Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee?_”
“Good Gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What does that mean?”
“That means, ‘Is the porridge hot yet?’—in bird-language.”
“My! You don’t say so!” said the Doctor. “You never talked that way tome before.”
“What would have been the good?” said Polynesia, dusting somecracker-crumbs off her left wing. “You wouldn’t have understood me if Ihad.”
“Tell me some more,” said the Doctor, all excited; and he rushedover to the dresser-drawer and came back with the butcher’s book anda pencil. “Now don’t go too fast—and I’ll write it down. This isinteresting—very interesting—something quite new. Give me the Birds’A.B.C. first—slowly now.”
So that was the way the Doctor came to know that animals had a languageof their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon,while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table giving himbird words to put down in the book.
At tea-time, when the dog, Jip, came in, the parrot said to the Doctor,“See, _he_’s talking to you.”
“Looks to me as though he were scratching his ear,” said the Doctor.
“But animals don’t always speak with their mouths,” said the parrot ina high voice, raising her eyebrows. “They talk with their ears, withtheir feet, with their tails—with everything. Sometimes they don’t_want_ to make a noise. Do you see now the way he’s twitching up oneside of his nose?”
“What’s that mean?” asked the Doctor.
“That means, ‘Can’t you see that it has stopped raining?’” Polynesiaanswered. “He is asking you a question. Dogs nearly always use theirnoses for asking questions.”
After a while, with the parrot’s help, the Doctor got to learn thelanguage of the animals so well that he could talk to them himselfand understand everything they said. Then he gave up being a people’sdoctor altogether.
As soon as the Cat’s-meat-Man had told every one that John Dolittle wasgoing to become an animal-doctor, old ladies began to bring him theirpet pugs and poodles who had eaten too much cake; and farmers came manymiles to show him sick cows and sheep.
One day a plow-horse was brought to him; and the poor thing wasterribly glad to find a man who could talk in horse-language.
“You know, Doctor,” said the horse, “that vet over the hill knowsnothing at all. He has been treating me six weeks now—for spavins. WhatI need is _spectacles_. I am going blind in one eye. There’s no reasonwhy horses shouldn’t wear glasses, the same as people. But that stupidman over the hill never even looked at my eyes. He kept on giving mebig pills. I tried to tell him; but he couldn’t understand a word ofhorse-language. What I need is spectacles.”
“Of course—of course,” said the Doctor. “I’ll get you some at once.”
“I would like a pair like yours,” said the horse—“only green. They’llkeep the sun out of my eyes while I’m plowing the Fifty-Acre Field.”
“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Green ones you shall have.”
“You know, the trouble is, Sir,” said the plow-horse as the Doctoropened the front door to let him out—“the trouble is that _anybody_thinks he can doctor animals—just because the animals don’t complain.As a matter of fact it takes a much cleverer man to be a really goodanimal-doctor than it does to be a good people’s doctor. My farmer’sboy thinks he knows all about horses. I wish you could see him—his faceis so fat he looks as though he had no eyes—and he has got as muchbrain as a potato-bug. He tried to put a mustard-plaster on me lastweek.”
“Where did he put it?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, he didn’t put it anywhere—on me,” said the horse. “He only triedto. I kicked him into the duck-pond.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor.
“I’m a pretty quiet creature as a rule,” said the horse—“very patientwith people—don’t make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have thatvet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby startedto monkey with me, I just couldn’t bear it any more.”
“Did you hurt the boy much?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, no,” said the horse. “I kicked him in the right place. The vet’slooking after him now. When will my glasses be ready?”
“I’ll have them for you next week,” said the Doctor. “Come in againTuesday—Good morning!”
“He could see as well as ever”]
Then John Dolittle got a fine, big pair of green spectacles; and theplow-horse stopped going blind in one eye and could see as well as ever.
And soon it became a common sight to see farm-animals wearing glassesin the country round Puddleby; and a blind horse was a thing unknown.
And so it was with all the other animals that were brought to him. Assoon as they found that he could talk their language, they told himwhere the pain was and how they felt, and of course it was easy for himto cure them.
“They came at once to his house on the edge of the town”]
Now all these animals went back and told their brothers and friendsthat there was a doctor in the little house with the big garden whoreally _was_ a doctor. And whenever any creatures got sick—not onlyhorses and cows and dogs—but all the little things of the fields, likeharvest-mice and water-voles, badgers and bats, they came at once tohis house on the edge of the town, so that his big garden was nearlyalways crowded with animals trying to get in to see him.
There were so many that came that he had to have special doors made forthe different kinds. He wrote “HORSES” over the front door, “COWS” overthe side door, and “SHEEP” on the kitchen door. Each kind of animalhad a separate door—even the mice had a tiny tunnel made for them intothe cellar, where they waited patiently in rows for the Doctor to comeround to them.
And so, in a few years’ time, every living thing for miles and milesgot to know about John Dolittle, M.D. And the birds who flew to othercountries in the winter told the animals in foreign lands of thewonderful doctor of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, who could understand theirtalk and help them in their troubles. In this way he became famousamong the animals—all over the world—better known even than he hadbeen among the folks of the West Country, And he was happy and likedhis life very much.
One afternoon when the Doctor was busy writing in a book, Polynesiasat in the window—as she nearly always did—looking out at the leavesblowing about in the garden. Presently she laughed aloud.
“What is it, Polynesia?” asked the Doctor, looking up from his book.
“I was just thinking,” said the parrot; and she went on looking at theleaves.
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about people,” said Polynesia. “People make me sick.They think they’re so wonderful. The world has been going on now forthousands of years, hasn’t it? And the only thing in animal-languagethat _people_ have learned to understand is that when a dog wags histail he means ‘I’m glad!’—It’s funny, isn’t it? You are the very firstman to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me dreadfully—suchairs they put on—talking about ‘the dumb animals.’ _Dumb!_—Huh! Why Iknew a macaw once who could say ‘Good morning!’ in seven differentways without once opening his mouth. He could talk every language—andGreek. An old professor with a gray beard bought him. But he didn’tstay. He said the old man didn’t talk Greek right, and he couldn’tstand listening to him teach the language wrong. I often wonder what’sbecome of him. That bird knew more geography than people will everknow.—_People_, Golly! I suppose if people ever learn to fly—like anycommon hedge-sparrow—we shall never hear the end of it!”
“You’re a wise old bird,” said the Doctor. “How old are you really? Iknow that parrots and elephants sometimes live to be very, very old.”
“I can never be quite sure of my age,” said Polynesia. “It’s either ahundred and eighty-three or a hundred and eighty-two. But I know thatwhen I first came here from Africa, King Charles was still hiding inthe oak-tree—because I saw him. He looked scared to death.”